TEITHGAN

Pererin's debut was quite succesful so that their Guerin label gave them freedom for the recording style of the follow up.The band visited the Studio Cain with a new member in the place of Nest Llwelyn, it was female flutist/keyboardist Lilo Haf.Circumstances were not the best during this time, regular visitors of the studio had a word on Pererin's songs, but the shield was the band's producer Anthony Pugh, who supported the band and even took the tapes of the sessions to London for a proper mix.Album was titled ''Teithgan'', released in 1981.

The music remains very ethereal and the tracks are still very emotional, always sung in the Welsh dialect.They seem to move a bit away from the previous GENESIS-styled electric guitar moves for a more MIKE OLDFIELD-like atmosphere, based on soft leads and moving solos.There is some pretty good balance in the bucolic enviromernt they produced, a nice combination of delicate flute parts, pastoral acoustic passages, soft keyboards and shiny electric textures, supported often by a nice dose of percussions.The atmosphere ranges from extremely rural, almost archaic tunes with flutes and acoustic guitars in evidence to more up-to-date soundscapes with the electric guitars and keyboards taking over, always condemned to produce sensitive and harmonic music.Maybe the album lacks in dynamics and the overall result is pretty mellow for the casual prog listener, but the content is well-crafted and detailed.Vocals are excellent and sentimental, like on the previous work, but there is plenty of space for instrumental images, the band was trully professional on creating elegant and melodic arrangements.''Symffoni lawen'' comes a beautiful highlight here, filled with unique vocal lines, smooth organ and fairytale acoustic parts.

Nice, albeit a bit too soft, Welsh Prog Folk.I still fail to compare this band to any other Folk-oriented group in terms of emotional content and that is a good thing.Recommended to all lovers of atmospheric, moving but always well-arranged soundscapes...3.5 stars.